In this episode, UVM faculty member and academics coordinator Winnie Looby interviews Vermont artist Leah Schulz.

Leah’s art directly references her experiences of multiple disabilities, as well as addressing and incorporating elements of who she was before she became disabled. Leah’s painting “Cyclical Choices” (2023) is part of an exhibit of work by Vermont artists with disabilities. The exhibit is being produced by Inclusive Arts Vermont, and is being shown at the UVM Davis Center, in Burlington Vermont, before being shown around the state, and then returning to Burlington for an extended residency with the UVM Center on Disability and Community Inclusion.

We’ll hear from Leah about her journey as an artist, as well as how disability shapes her art, and what it’s like to be back on the UVM campus — this time as an exhibitor, instead of a student.

https://youtu.be/ijV7C7AnelI

“I have drawn a diagram of my pain cycle over and over again in my journal and it goes like this: something happens to induce more pain or symptoms, it sends me into a flare and my reaction is to panic, a feeling like a free fall, and then freeze up and curl into the fetal position. I would try and help myself, reaching out – seeing specialists, and researching possible diagnoses and treatments, but I was getting crushed over and over again by a cycle of uncontrolled symptoms.” –Leah Schulz

Dr. Winnie Looby: Okay, So welcome to Green Mountain Disability Stories. I’m Winnie Looby and I am a lecturer and program coordinator for the Center on Disability and Community Inclusion at UVM. And today we’re here with Leah Schulz, who’s a Vermont artist. Her work is being included in a recent exhibit of art by Vermont artists with disabilities through Inclusive Arts Vermont.

Leah, could you introduce yourself, please, and tell us who you are and what you do?

Leah Schulz: Right. Thank you for having me. I have been listening to the podcast and you guys have had some great guests, so I’m really honored to be here. Thank you.

So yes! My name is Leah Schulz and I am a watercolor, linocut, and acrylic artist. And I live in Williston, Vermont, with my husband and my cat, Norman.

I am actually a UVM grad. I got my MBA from UVM in 2015, and my background is in consulting and I also used to work for the [Vermont] Division of Aging and Independent Living (DAIL). So I have had a career working in the field of disability as well.

So I like to share my diagnoses, because you really never know when someone is searching for a diagnosis and they hear a diagnosis, especially of rare condition, so I like to share that information because I really never know when someone is looking for that. *laughs*

And so I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and hyper adrenergic POTS and small fiber neuropathy, and erythromelalgia (That’s a tricky one.) And then I am currently studying to be a certified personal trainer and Reiki practitioner as well as wellness coach and certified nutrition counselor.

So: that work I hope to do with disabled people to help them regain their strength… as I have been doing for the last few years, so excited about that work as well.

Winnie: Yeah, it sounds great! I love how your career path has kind of gone along with your personal path. So you’ve made some some — you’d call it lemonade out of lemons experiences, and then your, you know, generously giving of yourself to other folks. I think that’s incredible.

So I have some questions here and we can kind of follow them, and kind of just be organic about it. It’s up to you. So I’m curious how your disability and your art kind of interact. What’s that influence?

Leah: Yeah, I wouldn’t be an artist if I wasn’t disabled. I have my bachelors in Biology, and Peace and Justice Studies, and I have an MBA in Sustainable Entrepreneurship. So I sort of used that side of my brain and thought that art was not something that I could do or that I was good at, or I had the time to be doing something so enjoyable, which is funny to say now. So when I became too sick to work five years ago, I suddenly couldn’t really use that other side of my brain. And art became my lifeline.

It was something that I could actually do to pass the days. And in those early days of getting sick, it was really what saved me, mentally, and brought new life and new perspective into my life? So I very much feel like it’s tied to my disability in a lot of ways. And then I learned that art is a lifeline to community because I was suddenly no longer on campus or in the work environment.

And my ability to share my art — online — was really my only connection to other people in a lot of ways.

And then I also found that art is… a radical act because it says, “I’m still here, I still exist, and I may not exist in person in these spaces, but here, me sharing these things? Is a connection that says I’m here.”

And when you tie your feelings, your expression, your experience of disability in your art? That becomes even more the political act. Because it makes people look, and see, and reminds them that disabled people exist.

Winnie: Wow. Yeah. I’m like you said, it’s a radical act. I definitely agree with that.

Prior to UVM, I did a lot of art school and all of that and I was kind of what my career path was going to be?

Both: *laughing*

Winnie: And then I really got into education. And I definitely did a little research, as a doc student, around artists and disability and the role that art played in their lives, right?

And they all mentioned the community piece.

They all mentioned like the, personal kind of self-care piece. So I think that’s fantastic, where you put that. Awesome.

So I’m curious how… so can you tell us a little bit about your piece that’s going to be in the show with Inclusive Arts?

Leah: The theme is cycles. Yeah. Someone sent me the prompt and said, “You know, I think you should you should consider this opportunity.”

And I read the prompt and pretty much immediately started sketching. I think the idea of cycles is something that I have been really in the depths of over the last few years, and in particular the pain cycle.

I was fortunate to work with a provider that helped me understand sort of the concept of a wave. So my painting is of a diving board sort of in the sky and this little figure dives off the diving board and sort of free falls and then tries to come together and get into a dive position and then dives into an ocean.

A painting of tiny pink figures diving into a deep blue sea, through cotton candy clouds. — “Cyclical Choices” (2023), by Leah Schulz. Displayed at the UVM Davis Center, Burlington VT.

In the ocean, they split off in three different directions. One goes straight down to the bottom and they sink into sort of a meditative pose. Another direction they go is they ride that wave and they come up to the surface and they look around, and then they turn and they swim and try and ride that wave.

And then the third is they turn and they climb and they climb back up the ladder and start ready to get back into that diving position.

And so my piece is called “Cyclical Choices” and is really about that diagram that I have drawn over and over, over the last few years of saying, “Okay, we’ve got these symptoms. I feel like I’m in freefall because I have these feelings about it, I have these tools, and how can I get into that position of addressing those patterns?”

And then I work through some of those and then more things come up and how do I address those? And sometimes you sink to the bottom of that a sort of lived there for a little while, and sometimes you can resurface and ride it out and get out of that pain cycle. And some...